News & Views:
1. My Latest Blog on Helping Our Children: An Integrative and
Holistic Approach to Autism and ADHD is now online. Read it here.
1. 2. Holistic Health Forum: now listed on Times Union Calendar of events.
2.
3.What about mom??!! Want something to listen to while packing lunch that will feed your soul? Click on Hayhouse
streaming Radio and listen to:
·Mom
Energy hosted by Diane Ray & Back to School with Michele Phillips
3. 4. Dr. Oz’s Sharecare: view my answers here.
4.
Latest Links:
ACTION
ALERT:
The recent FDA
NDI Draft Guidelines have the potential to impose unreasonable demands on our
availability of quality and accessible supplements. A summary of the draft can
be found here. It can be found
in its entirety here. Please review
the material, and if you feel called to, spread the word to your friends and loved ones. Together, we can make a difference, as we did in 1994.
Dr. Mercola posted a
summary and a proposed draft to send to our congressmen for our voice
to be heard. You can also access a letter to send through the Alliance for
Natural Health.
Facts on Supplement Safety:
S.1310: Dietary Supplement Labeling
Act of 2011,
introduced at the end of June by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) is
trying to treat vitamins as if they are drugs, allegedly to
“improve the safety of dietary supplements,” which implies that
supplements must be a major safety hazard to begin with. Durbin’s bill goes
hand-in-hand with new FDA regulations that amend the definitions for new
dietary ingredients (NDI’s), and together, they can threaten your health and
freedom of choice, and further serve to strengthen the fatally flawed paradigm
of health and medicine.
An estimated 106,000 hospitalized patients die each
year from drugs that,
by medical standards, are properly prescribed and administered, and an
estimated two million more suffer serious side effects.
How does the safety of supplements compare?
·In
2001, 84.6 percent of all substances implicated in fatal poisonings were
pharmaceutical drugs, according to that year’s American Association of Poison
Control Centers (AAPCC) report. This compares with 0.8 percent for all dietary
supplements combined, even including substances such as dinitrophenol, a
dangerous (and illegal) substance banned in 1938, as well as the central
nervous system stimulant Ma Huang (Ephedra). ONE drug alone, the
anti-asthma drug theophylline, which was responsible for 15 deaths that year,
amounted to 66 percent more than all the available dietary
supplements combined.
·According
to CDC mortality data for 2005, prescription drugs killed more than
33,500 people
that year, second only to car accidents. That same year, the American Association of Poison Control
Centers reported
27 deaths that were associated with dietary supplements
5.Fun Facts:
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) symptoms
linked to circadian rhythm and sunlight
A new study in
the journal Nature
Reviews Rheumatology demonstrated that RA symptoms peak at night. The researchers
believe it is due to RA patients having a higher level of proinflammatory melatonin and a lowered
level of the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol compared to controls. Furthermore, RA patients were
found to have lowered vitamin D levels. This fact was explained as a down
regulation of the innate immune response due to an up regulation of autoimmune antibody
production (RA is an autoimmune disease). Here’s an excerpt:
Diurnal fluctuations in the signs of joint
inflammation are familiar to patients with RA; the intensity of pain and
stiffness varies consistently as a function of the hour of the day and is
greater upon waking in the morning than in the afternoon or evening (Figure 1).[2] To explain such rhythms, the
production of important circadian nocturnal hormones, such as the
proinflammatory pineal hormone melatonin and the anti-inflammatory adrenal
hormone cortisol, has been implicated in the control of inflammation, at least
in the context of RA. In particular, basal melatonin concentrations are higher,
and the nocturnal rhythm shows peak levels earlier, higher and of longer
duration, in patients with RA in comparison with healthy individuals.[2] Meanwhile, impaired cortisol
production has been described in patients with active RA, and this observation
is consistent with the presence of a relative (i.e. a subclinical) adrenal
glucocorticoid insufficiency.[2] Accordingly, cytokines secreted by
type 1 T helper (TH1) cells–IFN-γ, IL-1, IL-2, IL-6, IL-12, and
tumor necrosis factor (TNF)–reach peak production during the late night and
early morning, when melatonin serum levels are highest and plasma cortisol is
lowest (Figure 1), especially in patients with RA. Thus, symptoms of RA, which
is considered to be a mainly TH1 cell-driven inflammatory disease,
might well worsen during the night and early morning, and stabilize during the
day, in a circadian manner.[2] Other factors might also influence
early morning stiffness, such as the influence of several hours of relative
immobility during sleep.
Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749200?src=nl_topic
6.Anxiety and Fish Oil (Vitalchoice)
Fish oil seems to attenuate anxiety and inflammation, even in “normal”
populations.
Compared with the placebo group, the fish
oil group showed two major benefits:
·A 20 percent reduction in anxiety symptoms.
·A significant reduction in key blood markers for
inflammation.
Importantly, as the
authors wrote, “The reduction in anxiety symptoms associated with omega-3
supplementation provides the first evidence that omega-3s may have potential
[anti-anxiety] benefits for individuals without an anxiety disorder diagnosis
… [and] can reduce inflammation and anxiety even among healthy young adults.”
(Kiecolt-Glaser JK et al. 2011)
The study authors
explained the link between anxiety and inflammation: “Pro-inflammatory
cytokines promote secretion of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), a primary
gateway to hormonal stress responses; CRH also stimulates the amygdala, a key
brain region for fear and anxiety. Accordingly, alterations [increases] in
inflammation could also influence anxiety.” (Kiecolt-Glaser JK et al. 2011)
Source: http://newsletter.vitalchoice.com/e_article002212751.cfm?x=bk1DWs6,b1h0JlRD
7.
Local
Business Spotlight:
Last night I did a presentation for a lovely group of “Heart-Centered
Business Women” at the Century House in Latham. This wonderful business donates a meal to the needy for every meal served. Currently, the Century House has donated over 20,000 meals.
